Miraculous Ladybug: A School Project
by Hoenn14
Summary: Do you smell a love triangle? Because I do. Technically I smell a love pentagon, but considering there's only three people... Whatever I give up. Anyways! Adrien, Marinette, and my tomato son Nathan, are in a group together for a science project that they will have to complete over spring break. Will there be jealously? Maybe. Will I be a confused writer about my ship tastes? Probs
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! I'm back on Fan Fic for the first time in years! I may or may not continue to work on old works, but I may decide to rewrite them entirely. I am starting up with a new story in a different fandom. Miraculous Ladybug! I'm excited to write for you guys! I'm trying to incorporate more words, as well as better grammar into my writing; so if anything is wrong, please review! BTW this chapter may not be a thrill ride, but hold on. I promise I will make the story more interesting after I've set the foundation.**

The sun is shining bright above the city of Paris, France. Kids are running around rejoicing over the blessing that is about to be bestowed; spring break!

At Collège Françoise Dupont, teenagers are restless to get out of school. Sitting and waiting impatiently for the bell to ring, the students listen to their teacher, Ms. Mendeleiev, give a monologue about how they should behave over the week that they will be out of school. At the end of the lengthy speech, the kid's ears perked up and fallen expressions crossed their faces. Ms. Mendeleiev has announced a biology project that her class is to be completed over the course of the break.

The project is to be completed preferably in groups of three (only individually if a person is going on a trip) and will include having to go out and observe an animal in it's natural habitat, record what is seen, and write a full page over the behavior of the specimen. The only fact that brought the students peace was that the groups were to be chosen rather than assigned.

Marinette had been building up courage to ask a certain blonde haired model in front of her to be her partner, and as soon as Ms. Mendeleiev had finished speaking, she tapped Adrien on the shoulder and smiled awkwardly, catching a glare from Chloé as she did so. Marinette opened her mouth and formed the question she wanted to ask without stumbling on any words. The girl had been hanging out more with Adrien lately, so her awkwardness had mostly gone away. Training for a video game tournament with someone really changes a relationship!

"Adrien, would you mind if I were one of your partners for the project?" Marinette asked with a sheepish smile plastered across her face.

The boy smiled in return, "Of course! I would love to," he paused for a moment and fixed a playful expression on his face before starting his sentence again, "as long as this is also a promise that I'll be receiving free food in return for giving you my service."

Marinette giggled as she nodded at him, "I guess that could be arranged as well!"

Adrien looked at Nino, "I'm going to go ahead and guess that you and Alya are going to be partners, am I right?"

Alya and Nino looked at each other mischievously, "You know it!" Nino exclaimed, his words followed by an agreement from Alya.

"I feel bad for the third wheel who's going to get stuck with you two!" Marinette laughed. Her statement about third wheels made her ponder for herself who was going to be her other partner, alongside Adrien. She looked around the room, Chloé had been swarmed by Sabrina and Kim the second their teacher had gotten through with her speech, effectively blocking Chloé from interfering with Marinette's plan, so those three were not candidates. Mylène and Rose had both expressed to the teacher how they were going to be gone on a vacation and would have to do their projects alone. Over in the corner, it was obvious to see that Juleka, Ivan, and Alix had already congregated into a group, leaving Max and Nathanaël both sitting by themselves. Nino called out to Max, bringing them to their group.

Nathanaël was in his own world again, sketching away with his pencil. It was most likely that he hadn't heard a word that Ms. Mendeleiev had said. Marinette looked at Adrien, who had been following his partner's gaze, and he smiled at her and got up to go talk to their red-headed class-mate.

The artist was so absorbed in his sketch that he didn't even notice Adrien approach him, so Adrien got into the row in front of Nathanaël's desk. After doing this Adrien proceeded to lay his chin down on the desk right in front of the red head's face, and stare at him until his classmate acknowledged his presence.

Nathanaël hurriedly closed his sketch book before saying anything to the blonde boy in front of him. "Hello Adrien," he said, "is there anything you need?"

Adrien grinned, "Yes! Ms. Mendeleiev assigned a biology project that has to be completed over break, we have to be in groups of three. Marinette and I were wondering if you would like to be the third and final member of our group, would you please join us?"

Nathanaël looked over to Marinette, who waved to him and gave him a kind smile, and blushed red as his hair, "Yeah, I guess I'll join you guys…" He said as he fiddled with his mechanical pencil.

As Adrien walked back over to Marinette, he gave her the thumbs up sign and sat down a moment later. All the groups were formed and completed by the time the bell rang to release the students from their final class of the day.

Everyone quickly made their way to the classroom door, ready to escape school, and started to head home. As Marinette was about to exit the school grounds, she felt a tap on her shoulder. When she turned around she saw Nathanaël look into her eyes. "Marinette, I'm sorry for interrupting you on your way home, but could you please exchange cell phone numbers with me since we're partners?"

"Of course!" Marinette replied cheerfully, "I'm so dumb for not thinking of that while we were in the classroom!" She said as she punched herself in the head playfully. Both pulled out their respective phones, then opened up the "add contact" feature. They swapped phones and added in their name and number.

"Is it okay if I add a picture of myself for the sake of having a contact picture?" Asked Marinette, already opening up the camera on Nathanaël's phone.

Blushing, he replied, "Yes! That's okay with me."

"You get in it too! That'd be fun!" The pigtailed girl said as she started playing with camera filters. The redhead scooted over closer to her nervously and gave a sheepish smile to the camera as Marinette said "Cheese!" and punched down on the camera button.

"Now hand me my phone so I can take one on there. It really bothers me when things aren't all organized on my phone. I like to have pictures for everyone!" She explained as he handed her phone back over to her, with his information added. "Is it okay if I call you Nathan?" She smiled as he nodded. Giggling, she exclaimed "Cheese!" again as she took a picture on her phone.

Nathan looked at the picture and smiled, "You're so nice Marinette! I'm really excited to work on this project with you and Adrien!"

"I'm super excited as well! You're also pretty interesting yourself Nathan!" Marinette giggled as she remembered when he had been turned into le Dessinateur and had drew her a whole scene with a mini Eiffel tower as they drifted down le Seine, of course the moment had been a set up to take his akuma, but it had still been nice of him to draw that for her, "I'm looking forward to getting to know you better!" Marinette turned to leave, "I'll text you later!" She said as she walked towards her family's bakery.

The blue eyed girl hummed as she walked the streets of Paris to get home. She looked into the windows of tiny shops she passed with interest. Her vibrant eyes shined as she saw a tiny boutique with the words "Annual spring sale! Everything 40% off!" hanging on a sign in the window. She ran inside with glee and looked at all of the beautiful clothes. She quickly found a red pair of high waisted jeans with white stitching, pocket, and buttons. Marinette browsed the shelves for a cute top to go with her new find, eventually finding a black and white vertically striped crop top that was long enough to reach the top of her newfound jeans and not show her midriff.

Marinette asked the brunette girl, who she assumed was the employee on duty, sitting at the counter by the register if she could get into a dressing room. The employee took out some keys and led Mari over to the rooms, took a sign with the number 2 on it, and unlocked a dressing room, putting the two on the dressing room door.

"If you need anything, please tell me." The brunette said, smiling at Marinette. Mari quickly changed out of her regular outfit and tried her new one on. It looked perfect on her! The blue-haired girl knew it would work out great, after all, she was an aspiring fashion designer! Mari changed back into her normal outfit, and walked out to the register. "Did you find everything alright?" The clerk asked as Marinette set her new clothes on the counter and pulled out her debit card. "Yes ma'am I did!"

The clerk swiped Marinette's card, gave it back to her along with a receipt, and wished Marinette a good day as she headed out of the boutique.

Mari walked into the bakery portion of her house and was met with warm greetings from her parents, who informed the girl that Adrien had came over immediately after school let out to inform them of his, Marinette's, and Nathanaël's project. Marinette's blue eyes grew to the size of saucers as her parents continued to inform her that they had went ahead and sent Adrien to her room, and that he was waiting for her up there so they could discuss their project.

The girl sprinted frantically up to her room. She forgot if she had taken down her posters of him, and thought, "stupid, stupid, stupid!" to herself as she threw open the hatch to her room. She glanced at her walls, relieved that the posters were down, remembering that she had taken them down when she and Adrien were playing video games in preparation of a tournament they were chosen to compete in.

"What's the rush?" Adrien asked, startled by the speed at which Marinette had thrown her hatch open.

"Oh!" Said Marinette, "Nothing, nothing, Just… wanted to tell you I'm so excited to work on this project!" The girl laughed awkwardly and Adrien snorted out a laugh because of the expression on her face. She hadn't been that awkward around him for about two weeks now, so it was amusing to see that look on her face again.

"Alright Marinette, whatever you say…" Adrien said playfully.

"Hey I really am! Speaking of that project though, shouldn't we have Nathanaël here too if we're discussing it?" Asked the blue-haired girl.

"I was going to call him once I got here," Adrien started, "but I don't know his number!"

Marinette sighed, "Why didn't you get it from him at school?"

The boy smiled sheepishly, "Haha… Oops!" Marinette giggled, thinking how cute Adrien looked when he smiled so innocently like that. "It's alright, I'll call him." she said as she tore her eyes off of Adrien and picked up phone.

Adrien was strangely curious at why Marinette had Nathanaël's phone number, he didn't recall them ever talking in class. If fact, the red-haired boy rarely ever spoke in class at all. He always kind of just blended into the background, never pulling his head up from his art when the class had free time. The only interaction between Marinette and the ginger that Adrien could recall was when Hawk Moth had targeted Nathanaël, and he asked her out on a date after he had been infested with an akuma. He only remembered that because Ladybug had asked him to protect Marinette. Ah! His lady, Adrien couldn't believe he had almost forgotten about his bug! He was almost feeling jealous about another girl other than Lady! He thought it an oddity that that would happen, was his heart betraying him? The green-eyed boy shook his head, bringing himself back to reality. No, he did not romantically like Marinette, that pang is his chest was a fluke. His lady was always Lady, there was not room for a princess as well in the secret corners of his heart.

Adrien came out of his thoughts and into the real world when he heard an exasperated sigh from Marinette. "Nathan won't pick up!" She explained to her companion. "Do you want me to give you his phone number? I figure it would be mean to not let him in on our plans. I'll make a group text message with the two of you after I give his number to you."

There it was, another pang. Nathan? She hardly knew the guy and was shortening his name into a nickname. Adrien shook his head again to rid himself of this odd feeling, earning a puzzled look from Marinette while doing so, "You don't want his number?" She asked, thinking that his head shake was a no to her question.

It took Adrien a little bit to realize that was what she implied his shake to be. "No no, I got chills, yeah, I got chills! So I had to shake them out, but yeah of course I want Nathanaël's number! Can you lend me your phone so I can see his contact info?"

Marinette had to focus really hard not to blush at how cute Adrien was when he had to shake off his chills (which was a lie by the way), so when she told him he could see her phone her words came out slurred, making Adrien laugh. Well, the boy was laughing until he saw Nathanaël's contact in Marinette's phone.

Adrien plastered a smile on his face to mask the his jealousy that arose in his chest when he looked at the picture. He looked away from her phone for a second, seriously confused, and took a deep breath. He slowly turned his face to her phone again and hastily typed the number on her screen into his own phone. He basically threw her phone back at her trying to quickly get the picture out of his face, although he didn't realize that he had actually thrown it hard enough to inflict pain, until it smacked her in the arm and a confused look appeared on her face.

"Sorry," he said quickly, getting up to check if there was a bruise on her arm, "I'm not feeling well today, and I'm a little out of it." He said, figuring it was a true enough statement. The blonde sat beside Marinette and took her arm in his hand to examine it. His green eyes met her blue ones as he was going to tell her that he didn't think her arm would bruise, when his heart started beating rapidly and he felt blood rise to his cheeks.

Marinette's face contorted with worry, she held up her hand to his forehead, causing his heart to do another flip, "You feel awfully warm Adrien! I think you need to go home and get some rest if you aren't feeling well. Can you walk or take a bus back home? Or do we need to call someone to come get you?"

"Yeah, I should probably go. I need to get some rest and think…" He looked back up at Marinette, who was still looking like she was about to have a heart attack from her worry, "Don't worry about me though Marinette! I'll be fine, and I'll also be fine with taking a bus home."

The two left her room and went to exit the bakery, when Marinette's dad offered each of them a croissant. Adrien took it gratefully and hastily exited the shop.

Marinette watched until she couldn't see him anymore.

"What's wrong with him today?" He asked, with the same worried face that Mari had on her face.

"He's not feeling well." She answered as she started nibbling on her croissant.

 **Wow. Sorry this chapter is kind of short. But to be fair, when I'm typing this in doc. form it's about 5 pages. I'll try to make chapters around 10-15 pages. Idk how long this will be, but in the mean time please enjoy my terrible garbage ideas that are in fact, actual garbage. It's taking so much for me not to make Mari sassy and sarcastic towards Adrien. I know she could talk like that w/ Chat, but I feel like it's out of character for Mari to sass sweetie Adrien. I hope my writing style improves during this experimental story. I haven't written a narrative in a long time so plz bear with me.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Well, I'm happy to see all of the positive reviews on this story! Thanks for all the support, I'll need it to motivate me to write more!**

Marinette plopped onto her bed. She was so happy that Adrien had accepted her request to be a part of her group, and it would also be fun to get to know Nathanaël better as well, but she was especially excited for the part about Adrien. As she sat there on her bed, she went through her memory and played back all that had happened since Adrien was in her room. She wondered what he had been thinking about when he was sitting in here waiting on her. Did he look at her books, did he notice that the majority of stuff in her room was pink, did he notice and actually take into account that he was actually sitting in Marinette Dupain-Cheng's room, or did he just sit there staring into space not taking in the environment he was in? There was no way to know, not really.

The girl played with her pigtails and stared at her ceiling. What did he think of her? She was no longer a nervous spaz around him, thank goodness, so he couldn't think she was still an eccentric weirdo. The girl noticed that he had started opening up to her as well, not necessarily through words, but through actions. He didn't just smile and wave at her anymore like he would to a normal classmate, he actually paid her some mind. Marinette took the hair ties out of her pigtails and brushed through her hair with her fingers, still thinking about Adrien. Did he think her just a friend? That was the most probable and logical answer she could think of, so she went with it. She had to try harder to get him to actually notice her, not in just a friendly manner.

Marinette pulled out her phone and laid her head down on her pillow. She needed to text Adrien and Nathanaël about when they should get together to start brainstorming on their science project.

She opened up the messaging application on her cell and created a new message with her two partners. "Hello! It's me, Marinette!" She typed out first, "What time should we get together to get started on our project?" She pressed send on her screen and checked the time on her phone. It was only about 5:15.

Deciding she shouldn't just waste time, she picked up her sketchbook and her favorite mechanical pencil. She stroked her pencil delicately across the page to create the design of a new dress she had been wanting to sketch. She had been fond of blue as of recently, and had seen a terrific turquoise that would look lovely on the dress she had put together in her mind. The item of clothing would be made of chiffon and would be layered to give it a bubbly feeling. As she thought some more, tapping her eraser against her cheek, she realized what a wonderful idea it would be to have gold sparkly tulle added in her dress at the collar and poking out of the last layer. Her mind was bubbling with ideas when she heard a "ding!" go off.

Marinette looked all over her room, wondering what it might've been that made the noise, when it went off again and she realized it was her phone. She hit herself softly in the head with her eraser as if to say to herself, "you're dumb!" and unlocked her phone to look at her messages.

"I'm free tonight at 8, I think the sooner we get together the better our project will be." Is what Nathanaël had sent, and Adrien had responded shortly after saying that that would work out fine with him.

Marinette put down her sketchbook and her pencil and sent back an inquiry as to where the two would like to meet up, and a few minutes later had gotten back a response from her redheaded friend saying he would like to go meetup at someplace that sold coffee, to which Adrien replied that the local cafe would be a good place to go to get coffee and pastries.

"Sounds great you guys! See you then!" Marinette replied, grinning from ear to ear. She leapt giddily off of her bed and rushed to her mirror to check her reflection. Her pigtails were still perfectly intact and she didn't think she saw a pimple anywhere on the vicinity of her face! Running down the stairs to her kitchen, Marinette called out to see if her parents were home. No one replied to her call, and she knew she was alone. Marinette grabbed a plate full of cookies and ran upstairs.

"Tikki!" The girl called as she popped her head up from the hatch in her bedroom floor. From the corner of her room, she saw her red kwami awake from a nap. Tikki had been in the girls purse all day, and was only released after Adrien had left. After this, the kwami decided she was tired and settled down somewhere to sleep.

Tikki opened her mouth wide and yawned. "Marinette? Do you need something?" Marinette giggled at her adorable kwami and held up the plate of cookies, as well as entered her room completely, sitting on the floor and closing her hatch/door.

The red creature floated to Marinette and took a cookie, "Thank you!" She said as she floated back down to the ground and started nibbling at her cookie.

"It's been a good day!" Marinette said gleefully as she watched Tikki eat. The kwami nodded in response, letting her owner know she could go on. "You'll never guess who I'm meeting with tonight!" Tikki put her cookie down, "Chat Noir?" She guessed, but Marinette shook head so fast her pigtails come loose.

"I'm meeting Adrien!" She squealed with glee, "And Nathan, but Adrien! My love has finally been reciprocated!"

The red kwami gave the girl an unsure look, "Didn't you already meet with Adrien today? I thought he was over here earlier. I'm also not too sure a group project counts as reciprocated feelings, but I'm still happy that you're getting closer to Adrien! Seeing you do things that make you happy bring me joy Marinette!" Tikki finished with a smile.

Marinette grabbed Tikki and pulled her into a tiny embrace. "Aw, thank you so much Tikki, you can have as many cookies as your heart desires!"

When the girl released her kawami, she declared that she was feeling tired and wanted to go take a nap. She set an alarm on her phone that would wake her up at 7:15, and set off to bed.

…

A pair of electric blue eyes shot open as an alarm blasted from the corner of the room. Marinette scrambled out of bed and ran to shut her alarm off. It was 7:15. 45 more minutes until she had to be at the cafe to meet her partners. Rushing to the mirror, Marinette checked her reflection again. She saw that her hair was a tangled rat's nest and grimaced. Hastily she grabbed her hairbrush and dragged it through the knots in her navy blue hair, which hurt a lot more than she expected it to. A yelp escaped her mouth as she pulled the brush through a particularly large clump of hair, and she decided to go against her normal order of hair business and just flopped her hair into a bun on the top of her head, pinning back all the hair that was falling down due to its length.

Next, she realized that her clothes had gotten wrinkly because she had slept in them. The girl decided to open the other hatch in her room that led to the roof and check to see if it was cold. You never knew when a cold front could blow in.

Sure enough, it was kind of chilly outside, so the damsel decided to change from her everyday attire into something warm. The outfit she ended up picking was a dark brown sack dress, which she made herself when she was inspired by Balenciaga's design from the 1950's (fyi he was a famous fashion designer from the 1950's). She wore it with black tights and dark brown boots that came up to her knees.

She got out an old black purse to go with her outfit and let Tikki make herself at home. On her way downstairs, the girl grabbed the plate of cookies, shoving a few into her purse for her kwami, and slid the plate onto the counter downstairs.

When Marinette got to her front door, she hollered again to see if her mom and dad were home yet. After hollering, she realized there was a piece of paper taped to the door. It read

"Dear Marinette,

Maman and Papa will be gone to make some deliveries. We will see you soon! Don't get into any trouble and be home by 11.

Love, Maman and Papa"

Marinette checked the time on her phone before she opened the door and finally left her house. It was 7:36. She would be able to make it to the shop just in time!

Opening the door, the girl took off at a jog. She trotted down the sidewalk, made some turns, and kept on trotting until she saw the metro station. She got out her Paris Visite Pass, which allows a person to ride the Metro easily without the hassle of purchasing a ticket each time, swiped it, and went to board the underground transportation system.

She walked onto the train and sat down. A moment later a person sat down beside her. She turned her head and saw Adrien sitting next to her with a mile wide grin spread across his face. "Boo!" He said and started laughing at Marinette's deer in the headlights facial expression. "Did I surprise you?" the boy questioned.

Marinette shook her head and replied, "No! I just didn't think you took public transportation, it's dangerous for people in the limelight, you never know if there's a stalker or something. But I also didn't expect you to voluntarily sit next to me!"

The boy's spirit fell a bit at the hearing of these words, "I can go anywhere, I may be my father's son and personal modeling dummy, but I am also my own person who can handle the public, and I would sit by you without an invitation anyday. I thought we were friends, right?"

Marinette's spirit also fell as she saw Adrien's pout. She didn't realize he would take offense at that, which just showed she didn't know him very well. Sometimes she ran her mouth without thinking, Alya was always telling her that. "I'm sorry Adrien. I always speak before thinking about how my words will affect others. Let's start over. Hello Adrien, would you like a cookie?"

Adrien's green eyes brightened and he smiled gently. "You have cookies? And I forgive you, I can be very sensitive sometimes. I guess I don't have very much of a spine!" He laughed, but you could tell there was truth in his words, making Marinette's heart break a little. She dug a cookie out of her bag, which she realized may not have been very sanitary, and was glad Tikki didn't eat all of the cookies yet. As she handed her blonde friend the cookie, she spoke again, "Anytime you want a cookie I'll bring you one! That goes for any other pastry your heart desires as well!" She patted his head with the hand of hers that didn't have a cookie in it. He chuckled and took the cookies from her hand.

Over the intercom, the duo heard the call of the announcer's voice. It called for the stop they were supposed to get off at to get to the coffee house.

Eye's meeting, they grinned at each other and stood up, then proceeded to wait on the door to the metro train to open so they could get off. The door slid open and they both tried to exit, which caused them to bump into each other. Adrien backed off and touched Mari's shoulder. "You first." He said, and gave her a shy smile. Marinette could've sworn her heart jumped out of her chest, and her heart was frantically beating when she exited the train. She knew her face must be red from blood rushing to her cheeks, so she decided if any questions were asked, she would blame the blush on cold weather.

As Adrien exited the train, his eyes stayed on Marinette, not wanting to get separated from her in the crowd of people, and moved fastly to her before the crowd could get a chance.

 **Hello! Sorry I cut it off right there, but I haven't had a lot of time to work on this recently, so I wanted to update and give you guys something. I promise I'll pick up where I left off next chapter!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry for all they waiting you guys have to do. I'm really busy a lot of the time, so I barely get a chance to get to the computer and write. Since next month I have AP exams, all my classes are going full speed ahead. So I'll try to write more next month! Track season also ends this week for me on Wednesday/Thursday depending on how well I do, so there will be a little bit more time for me to write after that! Hope you guys keep supporting me and this story!**

As Adrien exited the train, his eyes stayed on Marinette, not wanting to get separated from her in the crowd of people, and he moved fastly to her before the crowd could get a chance to.

When he was right behind her he grabbed hold of the sleeve of her dress. Marinette felt the slight tug and looked at him quizzically, her face growing redder from his indirect contact. "So we don't get separated!" The boy said with a sheepish smile on his face, answering his friend's puzzled look.

Marinette smiled sweetly back at him. She was so happy they had met on the train. She fixed her eyes in front of her and led Adrien and herself out of the metro station. When they finally made it to the street again, Adrien finally let go of her sleeve, and walked to her side as they continued on route to the coffee house.

"So," Marinette started, catching Adrien's attention, "What's your favorite kind of coffee?"

"Coffee with milk! My mom always made it for me because I didn't like how bitter black coffee was."

Marinette saw the bittersweet look on her friend's face as he mentioned his mother. She knew that his mother wasn't in his family's residence anymore, but she didn't know why. Not wanting to pry or make the situation uncomfortable, Marinette picked up the conversation again. "I like it with milk as well! I love sweet things too, so I usually add some sugar to my coffee after I put the milk in."

"You're so lucky to live in a bakery Marinette, I love sweets, so I would be ecstatic to live in one. I bet it always smells wonderful, that you can smell whenever anything is being baked. I bet the aroma of chocolate chip cookies wafts through the entire house. I bet you never smell bad or need to invest in perfume because the scent of all the sweets would just linger on you and entangle themselves within the fibers of your clothes." Adrien paused for a moment his eyes widening, "I don't sniff you! Those things I said were all just what I would assume happen in your situation! That wasn't me saying that I sniff you everyday because-"

Marinette started giggling, which interrupted her friends ramble. "Don't worry," she said as she watched his expression soften into a sweet smile, "I would never assume that you did!"

"You're so sweet Mari…" Adrien said, stopping in his tracks to look her in the eyes, he didn't know why but he suddenly was filled with warmth and had the urge to be close to her. Not just walking beside her, but close enough where he could hold her.

He grabbed her sleeve once more and tugged, causing her to stumble into his chest. He felt like teasing her. It was odd, at the moment he felt exactly how he felt with Ladybug. Maybe he did like Marinette too. He took a chance and said something that would usually only slip out of his lips if he was his black cat persona.

"Would you mind letting me catch your sweet scent everyday?" Adrien let go of her sleeve and twirled a piece of hair, which was falling out of her bun and framing her face, with his index finger.

Marinette's face went beet red, she was shocked when he had called her "Mari," but she was even more shocked that those words had slipped out of Adriens mouth, and that he had started being so touchy all of a sudden. She gulped and tried to play this off, she was getting a Chat Noir feeling coming from Adrien at the moment.

Marinette grabbed his wrist and raised an eyebrow at him, putting a smirk on her reddening face and hoping she could pull this off without letting him see how he could change her mood with a simple turn of phrase, she would be just as teasing back to him. "Once we finish this project with an A, consider it good as done, as long as you can catch me!"

With that she turned and sprinted towards the coffee shop, winding through the crowd on the sidewalk. Adrien's words sounded teasing and playful, but they still made her heart race as fast as if he had been serious, and why would he say that? Was what he just did an indicator that he was interested, even a little, in her? She couldn't allow herself get any ideas, you never knew when someone was just joking a bit too far or being serious. She wouldn't read into that too much. She also wondered, because she knew Adrien was sweet and genuine most of the time, if what she just saw was a glimpse into another side of him? It seemed so different from his day to day persona. But she kind of liked it.

…

Adrien had watched Marinette's face after he used that line on her. At first she was shocked. The blood rushed to her face. Then her expression turned into one so familiar to him, it was that of his Lady when she was about to reject his advances and run ahead of her to acheive her goal, her main objective.

Suddenly he felt a pang of guilt. He knew his Lady was not interested in him romantically at first, like... at all, but recently she had been warming up to his alter ego, Chat Noir. If Ladybug was starting to like him in that way did her, he did not want to have any obstacles in his way, even if the one in his way was a sweet girl by the name of Marinette. He couldn't allow himself too much alone time with her, his heart was confused enough as it was. From now on he would only look at Ladybug, and he would shake off the feeling of warmth that Marinette gave him. That moment he just had was just a moment of weakness. Maybe.

And with that final thought, he took off after his friend, who was that and nothing else,0 and chased after her as she weaved her own clear path in what seemed to be a swamp of chaos, leaving him to follow in her footsteps. Why was he always following in the footsteps of blue haired, blue eyed women?

…

As Marinette rounded the corner on the street by the coffee shop, she saw Nathanaël there waiting for her and Adrien.

He wore a red sweater vest with a white collared shirt underneath, some black skinny jeans, and some black Birkenstocks(sandals). It was cold so she didn't understand the sandals, but she couldn't deny that he had great taste in casual clothes, or that he looked good in them.

When she got closer she also saw that his hair was styled a tad differently. It was still .swept to the left, but he had pinned his bangs over to the side so that you could clearly see his wonderful blue eyes, which were actually pretty close in color to her own!

She was a bit startled that she was being physically attracted to him at the moment, especially after Adrien had dropped that line on her. She shook her head, just because someone was attractive didn't mean you were in love. Nathan could be the most attractive man in the world, but her heart would still stay true to Adrien.

"Hey Nathan!" She said as she reached him at last. "I hope you haven't been waiting here in the cold for long! I don't want you getting a cold or anything like that!"

Nathanaël looked at her then gently smiled, directing his eyes towards the ground. "Hello Mari. You don't have to worry, I've only been here about 7 minutes. I'll be good."

Did she tell someone to call her Mari? Who came up with that. She honestly couldn't remember. B

"I'll be good" my rear, you should wait inside. All the heat in your body has already escaped from your head and toes, seeing as you didn't bother to cover either of those places with shoes or a hat!" She said teasingly, though she was also trying to sound serious.

The boy looked down at the ground again and smiled.

"Hey…" Marinette said, "You should try looking up more often! You'll always looked really closed off if you don't open up your body language."

Nathan looked up and smiled at her. "I'll try to do that more often." He looked around for a second. "Is Adrien almost here?"

Marinette nodded quickly, and she instantly relieved that awkward moment with Adrien, "We got separated in the crowd," she lied, "We met on the metro. He should be here any second now."

Both of them stared into the crowd the direction that Marinette had come from. Sure enough, they saw Adrien struggling to make his way through the crowd and towards them, but every time he accidently bumped into someone, or vice-versa, he would stop to apologize, and maybe even make some small talk if the other person was just as friendly as he was.

Eventually he made his way to them and gave them a sheepish smile. "Sorry about that guys…"

"It's good!" The redhead said as he looked up and into Adrien's eyes, trying out Marinette's "look up" advice. He smiled and then opened the door for his two partners.

The trio walked into the coffee house, it's interior was very retro-chic. It had black and white checkered tile and it's walls were wooden and stained a light brown. There was art-work hanging up, and all of the pieces look like they were painted about 30 years ago. There was a record player in the corner that played new and old indie-rock/alternative music.

"I like it in here." The blue eyed girl said as she sniffed the air. The boys took a good smell too and sighed. "I love the smell of coffee!" Adrien said dreamily.

"Scent weirdo." Marinette muttered under her breath.

"Huh?" Both the boys said in unison.

"Nothing, nothing! Hey, how about you, as in Adrien, go save us a booth by the window! Me and Nathan will get the drinks."

Marinette was trying to act as casual/cool as she could, she still felt awkward and thrown off by Adrien's previous comment that might have been a flirtation. But also might not have been. She really didn't know.

In trying to act nonchalant, Mariette kind came off as cold towards Adrien. She tossed him her bag and waved him towards the booth she wanted to sit at. Adrien walked off with a puzzled look on his face, heading to a booth.

Nathan gave Marinette an odd look, "Did something happen between you two? It seems like there's a bit of tension between you guys."

"Not really," she said quickly. "We're just, um, getting used to each other?"

"Oh. so do you two not hang out? I see you two looking at each other a lot during school, so I thought you were good friends with him."

"We're friends, but not super good friends I guess. I still don't know everything about his personality yet, so some things he does catch me off guard, so I have to have time to process some of his actions."

"Hm…"

Since Marinette suggested he look up more often, it was hard not to notice his pretty eyes and face structure. She smiled at him, feeling proud. He was going to become popular at school in no time with his newfound confidence, if you can call it that. It was more like a confused puppy dog was looking at you, but this was a step towards confidence for Nathanaël.

"Let's get our drinks, shall we?" She said, touching his shoulder.

When they were about a foot away from the counter Marinette slapped her forehead. "Stupid me! I forgot to ask Adrien what he wants!"

She ran back to their booth to ask the blonde boy his order, but when she got there Adrien touched her wrist and asked her a question instead.

"Did I make you uncomfortable earlier? I feel like I did. I was just joking around. Like I told you that one time. I'm new at this whole friends thing. I don't know where to draw the line sometimes. I'm sorry."

Marinette melted a bit at his cute face, "It's fine! It was just a joking side of you that I'd never seen, so I needed time to process that that was also you."

They smiled at each other for a second before Marinette realized what she had walked over there for. "Oh! That's right. What did you want to drink! I forgot to ask you earlier."

Adrien gave her a toothy smile, "Café avec du lait avec le sucre et la crème, s'il vous plaît!"

Marinette giggled at him. "D'accord!"

She ran back up to the counter and ordered with Nathanaël. They looked like a couple, Adrien thought, and since when did he look up all the time? He was like a new person. Enlightened by his surroundings, especially Marinette. He just kept looking at her. Adrien swallowed down a bitter taste that had just risen in his throat. Nathan liked Marinette, that was basic knowledge, he himself shouldn't be feeling odd over this now. He was happy for the carrot top, he told himself. Maybe they would start dating. Maybe they would like each other so much that they would elope. Maybe-

"Adrien!" Marinette sung, waking the boy out of his inner monologue. "You're coffee is ready. Ta-dah!" She sung again as she placed the coffee in front of her friend.

The side of the booth where Adrien was sitting was full because he also had his bag and Marinette's beside him, so the other two slid onto the other side of the booth. They were really close, Adrien felt his eye twitch. Snap out of it, he thought to himself, smacking his face.

His friends gave him weird looks. "I thought I felt a mosquito." He said hastily.

Marinette gave him a thumbs up and giggled a bit, then looked at Nathan's face and smiled.

"So where are we going to go? When are we going to go? And who will take us?" Marinette questioned.

"Well my family owns a big cabin that's about an hour away. We could stay there a few nights. It's in the woods and there are plenty of animals there. We go there during the summer, and I get to have to privilege of seeing many beautiful things that inspire me to paint." Nathan told them with a dreamy smile on his face. Marinette thought it was cool how much he loved art.

" I'm sure my dad's workers can take us, maybe we can even convince him to take a couple days off work. I bet if I told him you'd be there, Marinette, he'd come. He loved your hat that you designed, the one with the pigeon feathers. If I tell him that maybe you could work on some designs with him, that is if you're willing, he'd comply. Or at least I hope he would." Adrien suggested.

"That sounds wonderful you two! Look at us brainstorming!" Marinette said enthusiastically. "I can bring some ingredients and cook and bake meals and sweets as well! Let's all go home and ask permission right after we're done. But let's stay here and finish our coffee first. I want to chat with you two and get to know you guys better!"

They talked for about an hour more, discussing interests and other things, like their friends and acquaintances at school. After the talk was done, they all felt like they knew each other a lot better. One thing was sure though, the more Marinette learned about

Nathanaël, the more curious she got about him. She knew he used to have a crush on her, but she didn't know much else until tonight. Apparently he really liked sweets, dogs, the color red, and a lot of the same indie-rock bands as she did.

The more she knew about him, the more she felt like she was betraying Adrien though. Maybe she would confess to him to see how he felt about her after this whole project thing was done. That would give him time to maybe develop a crush on her.

On their way out of the coffee shop they all parted ways. Adrien's bodyguards/guardians came to pick him up since it was late, Marinette walked back towards the Metro, and

Nathanaël walked back towards wherever he came from. They all waved and said their goodbyes and goodnights, reminding each other not to forget to ask about their contribution to the project.

Marinette smiled and hummed a tune on her way back home. It was going to be a fun week.


End file.
